[Sca-cooks] Anything going on ?

[David Friedman]

Yes. Thanks. I hope you'll let all of us know what you end up doing and 
how it turns out.


On 8/30/16 5:53 PM, Laura Minnick wrote:
> Ah! Yes, there's Anthimus. He's 6th c. And then there's a huge gap, 
> until you start getting the Anglo-Norman books, etc.
>
> So I've had to improvise. It's sort of a triangulation between several 
> sources. I looked at climate and terrain, and what could be grown in 
> the area. Wrote the German dept of agriculture, told them what I was 
> doing, and they were quite happy to give me info on the growing zones 
> and such, and what will generally grow where. I went through the 
> capitularies and manorial accounts and looked at what they were 
> growing and what livestock they were raising. I found out what was 
> growing seasonally. So I had a good idea of what could be grown in the 
> area, and what I knew that they were growing, which tells me what they 
> ate, just not how.
>
> For how, I looked at the previous books- Roman, Anthimus, etc., so I 
> knew how people before then prepared their food. And I looked at later 
> books to see what had changed, which gave me an idea of the arc, so to 
> speak. Also gleaned other bits from medical documents and such. Case 
> in point: as an older man, Charlemagne was having periods of ill 
> health (seems to be gastrointestinal), and his doctors insisted that 
> he stop eating roasted meat, and eat boiled meat only. This tells me 
> that people were eating roasted meat- at least the Emperor was! And 
> continued to- basically his reply was that he'd eat what he pleased. 
> (It's good to be the king!) Similar things, like clerics writing about 
> dissolute monks eating rich foods, etc. Even found a letter from 
> Alcuin to an abbot, telling him to not feed so many beans to the 
> monks, lest the results disturb services!
>
> And I also looked at what facilities and tools they had available to 
> work with- after all, they didn't have my kitchen, or even my camp 
> kitchen to work in.
>
> From there, I put it all together and mixed in a bit of my brain, 
> which admittedly is not medieval, but has been studying medieval food 
> for something like 30 years. I found it interesting that as I've been 
> in the middle of all of this, Giano put out the CA on Frankish food, 
> and to my delight I found that we'd been thinking much along the same 
> lines. We could have easily cooked in each other's kitchen.
>
> Does that answer your question, Your Grace?
>
> Liutgard
>
>
> On 8/28/2016 9:52 AM, David Friedman wrote:
>> Tell us about "Frankish stuff." The only source that occurs to me is 
>> Anthimus.
>>
>>
>> On 8/28/16 7:35 AM, Laura Minnick wrote:
>>> Well, I'm not doing much at the moment. I'm having some fairly 
>>> significant health issues, and spending most of my time dealing with 
>>> that.
>>>
>>> I did go to Egils though, and fed 9 in camp, and... I don't know how 
>>> many Saturday night for dinner. Still working on Frankish stuff, and 
>>> it went well, except- a major fair with the roast. I don't know what 
>>> happened- everything was the same- roast, pan, coals- but when I 
>>> went to get it out, it mooed at me. I had a small breakdown in the 
>>> bushes behind the kitchen, then came back to my horrified helpers, 
>>> and said 'Ok, we go on. This is what we're going to do...' and we 
>>> went on with dinner, with a revised menu. Everyone was fed and I 
>>> don't think the guests knew any different.
>>>
>>> I also made cheese in camp, which was a first. I got some basic 
>>> instructions and recipes from Maeve, hung it up to drip before I 
>>> left for market* and then took it down while I was doing  prep (it 
>>> was part of the dessert). It worked wonderfully, and I'm likely to 
>>> do it again.
>>>
>>> *I had an idea that I would go into town to the farmer's market and 
>>> get my fresh produce there. Didn't work- the produce was lovely, but 
>>> about three times the standard supermarket price. I couldn't in good 
>>> conscience use our camp's food money that way, so I ended up going 
>>> on to the Safeway from there. The only thing I did get was fennel- 
>>> fennel is hard to find, and I couldn't be sure it was available at 
>>> Safeway. The fennel was gorgeous- firm, fat bulb, brilliant white. 
>>> and it was very tasty!
>>>
>>> An Tir September Crown is next weekend, and I'm going, but camping 
>>> with #1 daughter, and she's feeding me, so all I have to bring is my 
>>> tent and personal stuff. I think it will be nice, being able to 
>>> relax, and leave camp without worrying about being on a strict 
>>> timetable for meal prep.
>>>
>>> Liutgard
>>>
>>>
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>>
>
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-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/